Sunday spike: NCAA TV audiences increase for CBS, Turner

By The Associated Press -
Associated Press
Monday, March 20, 2017

CBS Sports and Turner Sports say viewership for the first Sunday of the NCAA Tournament, which was packed with close games and marquee teams, was up 34 percent over last year’s Sunday second-round coverage.

The networks announced Monday that the eight games aired Sunday on CBS, TBS, TNT and truTV averaged 11.9 million viewers. Last year’s Sunday second-round games drew 8.9 million viewers.

Sunday’s games featured some of the college basketball’s most notable power programs: Kentucky, Duke, North Carolina, Louisville, UCLA and Kansas. Six of the eight games played were decided by seven points or fewer, with South Carolina upsetting Duke in prime time.

Overall, viewership for the tournament is up 10 percent from last year at an average of 9.325 million over the first four days and has been the most-watched in 24 years, CBS and Turner said.

This is the seventh year of the partnership between the two networks that has allowed all the game to be televised nationally.

The networks also said the first weekend of the tournament was streamed on March Madness Live more than ever before with 69.1 million live streams, an increase of 24 percent over last year.

The games with the most live streams have been: Notre Dame vs. Princeton (5.4 million streams), which was the first game to tip-off Thursday afternoon; Virginia vs. UNC-Wilmington (4.3 million streams on Thursday afternoon); and Michigan vs. Oklahoma State (4.2 million), the first game to tip-off Friday.